


Just a Little Late

by haraya



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Ambiguously Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Dalish Origin, F/M, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haraya/pseuds/haraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mahariel finds her happy ending just a little bit later than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Late

**Author's Note:**

> Written in an emotionally-compromised rush induced by Tamlen feels. Unbeta'ed. Read at risk of heartbreak.
> 
> Title comes from the song "You Found Me," by The Fray.

Tamlen always knows how to find her.

It's terrible as children; she can out-run and out-smart any of the others when they play hide-and-seek in the woods, but when it is Tamlen's turn to seek she can't go anywhere far enough or high enough that he won't find her.

It proves to be a blessing, some time later, when she goes a stone's throw too far and hides a little too well, and Junar has never been particularly good at seeking. The sun is starting to set and Lyna can feel the cold of the forest floor start to seep through her thin clothes.

Lyna starts to cry. She's five years old and she's going to die here in the cold forest, and _oh, Creators, is that a wolf she hears in the distance?_ She huddles deeper into the shelter between a tree's roots where she's been hiding all this while, her arms winding around herself as she rocks to and fro.

The clan would send a search party, she tells herself. The hunters would scour the woods for her; maybe Keeper Marethari had ancient magic that could find her--

Something rustles in the underbrush.

_Mythal, protect me,_ she prays. _Andruil, hunt those who would hunt me, Ghilan'nain, make me swift,_ _oh_ _**Elgar'nan,** that sounds **big--**_

The bushes shake fiercely, and with a crack of twigs and the rustle of dry leaves the thing tumbles out and she _screams--_

\--and comes face to face with Tamlen, red-faced, with mud across his brow and panic in his blue eyes.

They stare at each other for a moment, both of them shocked into silence, before Tamlen finds his voice and calls, "She's here! I found her!"

And then all around them the hunters start crashing through the bushes, and one of them picks her up gently, and then another takes Tamlen, and then they start running back to camp, swift and silent through the dark woods.

She peers over the hunter's shoulder to see Tamlen, riding triumphant atop another's, and he grins at her and that is the moment she realizes she's safe once more.

Ashalle gives her a right scolding that night, but she takes pity on the young elf and sends her to bed early, humming an old lullaby as she runs her slim fingers in Lyna's hair. All the while, Tamlen sits just outside their aravel, his hair still in disarray after all the excitement. He turns to her and smiles when he catches her staring, and finally exhaustion pulls her under and she falls asleep to that -- to a boyish, gap-toothed grin that tells her she's safe, and she dreams of that same smile he'd given her in the woods, his fair hair silver in the moonlight as their clan mates bore them swiftly home.

 

\---

 

Tamlen always knows how to find her, and it's _annoying._

She's fifteen and has just run off after an argument with Ashalle, who still refuses to say anything substantial about her parents save that _they loved each other and they loved you._

And maybe they did, but they certainly didn't love her enough to _not die on her._

Lyna paces agitatedly in the small clearing she'd discovered a few weeks before. Small and peaceful, it offers her sanctuary when she needs time alone.

So _of course_ Tamlen would find a way to ruin it.

"Nice place," he calls, and she whirls, startled, and finds him lounging lazily in the branches above her. He grins at her grimace, dropping down lightly next to her.

"Did I startle you?" he asks, and when she only crosses her arms in response he laughs delightedly, the bright tenor sound ringing across the clearing. "I did, didn't I? And you, an aspiring hunter? For shame, Mahariel."

She punches him in the arm and takes perverse satisfaction in his wince.

"Come on," he sighs, relenting to her thundercloud expression. "You look like you need to kill something, and I'd rather it wasn't me."

He takes off, bow in hand, and she takes off after him. He's stronger than her, but she's swifter, now, and she quickly overtakes him. She slows when she hears something in the brush -- small, probably a hare -- and she takes her bow in hand and silently nocks an arrow.

It's quiet; she can't even hear the sound of her own steps on the soft earth. It's _too_ quiet -- she looks around and realizes Tamlen's nowhere to be seen.

She straightens up, suspicious, and right on cue Tamlen suddenly drops down behind her from the tree he'd been hiding in. He laughingly tackles her to the ground, knocking away her bow and scaring off her prey. She turns her head just in time to see its fluffy tail disappear into the brush.

"Got you!" he cries, grinning as he pins her down to the grassy forest floor. The scent of moss and earth assails her, and then, moments later, the scent of leather and woodsmoke and _boy,_ and when she looks up at him Tamlen's hair is haloed in gold from the sunlight streaming through the canopy.

She'll say, later, that she must have hit her head, because she doesn't know what possessed her to reply, dizzy and breathless: "I guess you do."

And Tamlen turns red and says, "What?" and then _she_ turns red and starts flailing and pushes at his shoulders -- _**Elgar'nan,** have they always been so **broad?**_ \-- until he lets her up.

She sits up and reaches for her bow, unable to look him in the eye. "You made me lose my quarry," she tells him crossly. "I was hunting, you know."

"When I'm a full hunter, you won't need to anymore," he says behind her.

"What?" she says, shocked at his (non-)declaration, but when she turns to him he's already sprinting away into the woods, leaving her in the moss and the earth and the lingering smell of leather and woodsmoke.

 

\---

 

It's stupid.

Such a _stupid_ mistake; it might cost her the opportunity to get her vallaslin sooner rather than later and Tamlen's going to be insufferable when he finds out she'd been injured after successfully taking her kill.

She'd been so proud of killing a wolf for her proving -- and Tamlen had only gotten several deer, ha! -- that she'd been caught unawares by the wolf's mate and had tumbled down with it into a shallow gully before killing it with her dagger.

So now she has two wolves for her proving and a sprained ankle to show for it, except she might not _get_ to show anyone if no one finds her, and the sun is setting rapidly, casting shadows over the forest.

She's already tried several times to climb out, each time falling back down due to the pain in her foot. No doubt were she to try now, she'd only step on a loose bit of rock or some such she couldn't see in the dark and fall down again. Maybe even twist her other ankle, because that's just her luck. She decides to just rest for the night, and hopes to all the Creators that the rest of the wolves' pack mates won't finish her off.

When blue shadows have settled around her, she hears the distant sound of a hunter calling her name, spies the flicker of torchlight through the trees.

"Over here!" she shouts, and waits, watching the orange light brighten as the hunter approaches the lip of the gully.

It's Tamlen who finds her, of course.

Because _that's_ just her luck, too; he'll help her, no doubt, but he'll probably also take the time to laugh, because that's just how he is.

"Lyna?" he calls, peering down at her.

"My ankle's hurt," she calls back. "I'll need some help."

"Hold on." Tamlen clambers down the rocks, graceful as a halla, and then he's kneeling beside her, sticking the torch upright in the soft earth so he can examine her ankle with both hands.

"It's swollen," he says chidingly.

"Amazing," she says sarcastically. "Ever thought you ought to be a healer instead?"

He scrunches up his nose in a grimace, but his blue eyes are serious in the flickering light.

"That yours?" he asks, inclining his head toward the wolf carcass.

She nods. "The one up there, too. It's still there, right?"

"Still there," he grunts, before slinging his bow and quiver around to his front and turning his back to her. "Climb up and hold tight. I'll need my hands to climb back out of here."

They have to leave the torch, but it'll light the way up well enough. She wraps her arms around his shoulders -- impossibly broad now; _Creators,_ when had _that_ happened? -- and her legs around his trim hips, and tries not to think of other situations where they'd be in a similar position, face to face, chest to chest, his lips pressed to her neck--

Oh, _Elgar'nan._

She turns her burning face up to the star-speckled sky, afraid that he'll notice how warm her cheeks are despite the cool night air.

If he does notice anything amiss, he mercifully doesn't mention it, focusing instead on carefully pulling both of them up and out of the gully. When he reaches the lip he hauls them out -- _such powerful arms, such strong hands;_ she pushes that thought away -- and adjusts his grip on her before he takes off through the dark woods, running swift and silent over the soft earth.

"But my kills--" she protests, but he cuts her off, his tone firm.

"The torch will mark it for the other hunters. I need to get you back to camp." His hold on her tightens before he adds, blithely: "Big kill, Mahariel. Not bad."

He says nothing more as he runs, sure-footed even in only moonlight.

She relishes the quiet before she begins, resignedly: "What, no gloating? No teasing the stupid hunter who fell into a ditch and sprained her ankle?"

But Tamlen stays quiet, although she feels his shoulders tense under her hands. She looks at his profile and thinks his jaw is clenched tight.

"Tamlen?" she whispers softly.

He takes a shuddering breath and says, a half-hearted jest: "You should stick to crafting with Master Ilen. _I'm_ a real hunter now." He turns his head toward her, displaying the golden scrolls of his vallaslin that stretch when he offers her a small grin, as if she might have forgotten they were there. "I told you you wouldn't need to hunt anymore when I was. You never listen."

She scoffs without any real malice, the puff of her breath ruffling the short hair at his nape.

The moonlight casts his hair silver.

She remembers another time -- a simpler time -- in woods different from these but still so similar, when she'd been lost and Tamlen had found her and his smile had called her home.

She indulges herself the urge to press her face against his neck, inhaling the familiar leather-woodsmoke-Tamlen scent of him as she tightens her hold around him. She thinks she feels him stumble a little as he runs, and she laughs quietly under her breath, huffing against his skin.

"Tamlen?" she says, her lips brushing the point where his neck meets his shoulder.

A breathless pause. "Yes?"

"Thank you for finding me." She whispers it against him, a soft secret between her mouth and his skin, her lips painting the memory of moon-silver hair and a smile that feels like home into the hidden dips and crevices of his shoulder.

She takes immense satisfaction in the way his breath hitches.

"Don't I aways?" he says, but the slight catch in his voice compels her mouth to curve against his shoulder.

"I guess you do," she says, and they say nothing more as the miles disappear beneath them, his footsteps light over the mossy earth as he bears her swiftly, safely home.

 

\---

 

As it turns out, she's not as skilled at finding Tamlen as he is at finding her.

Not even on the one time that matters.

 

\---

 

She can't leave the clan, she _can't._

She protests, tells the Keeper and the Warden that this is all she's ever known, that she'd rather take her chances, but in the privacy of her mind she thinks, _Tamlen's still out there somewhere and how will he find her if she's **not with the clan?**_

But there's the Warden's Conscription, and Marethari's acceptance of it, and she's only given time enough to pack and attend the rites for Tamlen -- a delaying tactic on her part; he can't be dead, he _can't_ be, she would _know_ \-- before Duncan spirits her away to Ostagar, and when she turns back to see her clan one last time, the thought that weighs heaviest on her heart is that there's no way Tamlen could ever find her now.

 

\---

 

She's wrong, of course.

The shrieks come in the night, and everyone's surprised -- even Sten, who had been on watch, even Alistair who can always sense darkspawn before she does. They came out of nowhere!

She lets them believe that, but she knows better.

Tamlen always did know how to find her.

 

\---

 

The Archdemon's roar splits the sky asunder.

She looks to Alistair, out of breath, but his grip on his sword tightens when he meets her gaze.

"Let me," he says.

She shakes her head no, and there's no arguing with the look in her eyes. She puts away her bow as he hands her his sword. He salutes her once, his fist over his heart.

She runs. When she sinks her blade into the dragon's head she thinks she hears Tamlen's voice, playful: _"Big kill, Mahariel."_

A roar, a flash of light, and then she's gone.

When she wakes again, it's to sunlight filtering through the green canopy. Mist hangs through the woods, cool and pleasant on her skin.

She rises and feels the insubstantial ground beneath her feet, feels the eyes of wispy figures watching her from the trees. She reaches for her bow and finds it gone.

_\--Dagger now sheathed, bow no longer tense--_

These woods are quiet; no bird sings here, no wolves stalk the paths.

_\--During this, your last hour, only silence--_

"There you are."

She grins; she'd know that voice anywhere. He always did know how to find her.

She turns and almost bursts into tears right there.

"Tamlen," she says, and it's him, it's _him._ Tamlen with his golden hair and summer-sky eyes; Tamlen before the Taint; Tamlen, _her_ Tamlen, before everything had gone to the Void.

He walks up to her, takes her hand. He presses his forehead to hers, and whispers, with a grin that feels like home: "Found you."

She smiles back. She's _home._

"I guess you did."

She pulls away but keeps her fingers entwined with his, and hand in hand they turn and walk out into uncharted lands and Beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> WHY CANT TAMLEN AND MAHARIEL JUST BE HAPPY, BIOWARE!?


End file.
